The ratification of Virginia took place on the 25th of June; the news of this event was received and published in Philadelphia on the 2d of July. The press of the city was at once filled with rejoicings over the action of Virginia. She was the tenth pillar of the temple of liberty. She was Virginia,—eldest and foremost of the States,—land of statesmen whose Revolutionary services were as household words in all America,—birthplace and home of Washington! We need not wonder, when she had come so tardily, so cautiously, into the support of the Constitution, that men should have hailed her accession with enthusiasm. The people of Philadelphia had been for some time preparing a public demonstration, in honor of the adoption of the Constitution by nine States. Now that Virginia was added to the number, they determined that all possible magnificence and splendor should be given to this celebration, and they chose for it the anniversary day of the National Independence.
A taste for allegory appears to have been quite prevalent among the people of the United States at this period. Accordingly, the Philadelphia procession of July 4, 1788, was filled with elaborate and emblematic representations. It was a long pageant of banners, of trades, and devices. A decorated car bore the Constitution framed as a banner and hung upon a staff. Then another decorated car carried the American flag and the flags of all friendly nations. Then followed the judges in their robes, and all the public bodies, preceding a grand federal edifice, which was carried on a carriage drawn by ten horses. On the floor of this edifice were seated, in chairs, ten gentlemen, representing the citizens of the United States at large, to whom the Federal Constitution had been committed before its ratification. When it arrived at "Union Green," they gave up their seats to ten others representing the ten States which had ratified the instrument. The federal ship, "The Union," came next, followed by all the trades, plying their various crafts upon elevated platforms, with their several emblems and mottoes, strongly expressing confidence in the protection that would be afforded under the Constitution to all the forms of American manufactures and mechanic arts. Ten vessels paraded on the Delaware, each with a broad white flag at its masthead, bearing the name of one of the ten States in gold letters; and, as if to combine the ideas both of the absence and the presence of the ten States, ten carrier-pigeons were let off from the printers' platform, each with a small package bearing "the ode of the day" to one of the ten rejoicing and sympathizing States.
Thus did ingenuity and mechanical skill exert themselves in quaint devices and exhibitions, to portray, to personify, and to celebrate the vast social consequences of an event which had then no parallel in the history of any other country,—the free and voluntary adoption by the people of a written constitution of government framed by the agents and representatives of the people themselves. The carrier birds are not known to have literally performed their tasks, but as rapidly as horse and man could carry it, the news from Virginia pressed on to the North, and reached Hamilton at Poughkeepsie on the 8th of July.
It found him still surrounded by the same difficulties that existed when he received the result of the convention of New Hampshire. The opposition had relaxed none of their efforts to prevent the adoption of the Constitution; they had only become somewhat divided respecting the method to be pursued for its defeat. Some of them were in favor of conditions precedent, or previous amendments; some, of conditions subsequent, or the proposal of amendments upon the condition that, if they should not be adopted within a certain time, the State should be at liberty to withdraw from the Union; and all of them were determined, in case the Constitution should be ratified, to carry constructive declarations of its meaning and powers as far as possible. Hamilton was conscious that the chief danger to which the Constitution itself was now exposed, was that a general concurrence in injudicious recommendations might seriously wound its power of taxation, by causing a recurrence, in some shape, to the system of requisitions. The danger to which the State of New York was exposed, was that it might not become a member of the new Union, in any form.
The leading Federalists who were united with Hamilton in the effort to prevent such a disastrous issue of this convention were John Jay, the Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, and James Duane. A few days after the intelligence from New Hampshire was received, these gentlemen held a consultation as to the most effectual method of encountering the objections made to the general power of taxation that would be conferred by the Constitution upon the general government. The legislative history of the State, from 1780 to 1782, embraced a series of official acts and documents, showing that the State had been compelled to sustain a very large share of the burden of the Revolutionary war; that requisitions had been unable to call forth the resources of the country; and that, in the judgment of the State, officially and solemnly declared in 1782, and concurred in by those who now resisted the establishment of the Constitution, it was necessary that the Union should possess other sources of revenue. The Federalists now resolved that these documents be formally laid before the convention, and Hamilton undertook to bring them forward.
On the 27th of June, he commenced the most elaborate and important of the speeches which he made in this assembly, for the purpose of showing that in the construction of a government the great objects to be attained are a free and pure representation, and a proper balance between the different branches of administration; and that when these are obtained, all the powers necessary to answer, in the most ample manner, the purposes of government, may be bestowed with entire safety. He proceeded to argue, not only that a general power of taxation was essential, but that, under a system so complex as that of the Constitution,—so skilfully endowed with the requisite forms of representation and division of executive and legislative power,—it was next to impossible that this authority should be abused. In the course of this speech, and for the purpose of showing that the State had suffered great distresses during the war from the mode of raising revenues by requisitions, he called for the reading at the clerk's table of a series of documents exhibiting this fact. Governor Clinton resisted their introduction, but they were read; and Hamilton and his friends then contended, that they proved beyond dispute that the State had once been in great peril for want of an energetic general government.
This movement produced a warm altercation between the leading gentlemen on the opposite sides of the house. But while it threw a grave responsibility upon the opposition, it did not conquer them; and by the day on which the intelligence from Virginia arrived, they had heaped amendments upon the table on almost every clause and feature of the Constitution, some one or more of which it was highly probable they would succeed in making a condition of its acceptance.
This critical situation of affairs led Hamilton to consider, for a short time, whether it might not be necessary to accede to a plan, by which the State should reserve the right to recede from the Union, in case its amendments should not have been decided upon, in one of the modes pointed out by the Constitution, within five or six years. He saw the objections to this course; and he was determined to leave no effort untried to bring the opposition to an unqualified ratification. But the danger of a rejection of the Constitution was extreme; and as a choice of evils, he thought that, if the State could in the first instance be received into the Union under such a reserved right to withdraw, succeeding events, by the adoption of all proper and necessary amendments, would make the reservation unimportant, because such amendments would satisfy the more reasonable part of the opposition, and would thus break up their party. But he determined not to incur the hazard of this step upon his own judgment alone, or that of any one else having a personal interest in the question; and accordingly, on the 12th of July, he despatched a letter to Madison, who was then attending in Congress at the city of New York, asking his opinion upon the possibility of receiving the State into the Union in this form.[452]
Madison instantly replied, that, in his opinion, this would be a conditional ratification, and would not make the State of New York a member of the new Union; that the Constitution required an adoption in toto and for ever; and that any condition must vitiate the ratification of any State.[453]
Before this reply could have been received at Poughkeepsie, the Federalists had introduced their proposition for an unconditional ratification, and this was followed by that of the Anti-Federalists for a conditional one. The former was rejected by the convention on the 16th of July. The opposition then brought forward a new form of conditional ratification, with a Bill of Rights prefixed, and with amendments subjoined. After a long debate, the Federalists succeeded, on the 23d of July, in procuring a vote to change this proposition, so that, in place of the words "on condition," the people of the State would be made to declare that they assented to and ratified the Constitution "in full confidence" that, until a general convention should be called for proposing amendments, Congress would not exercise certain powers which the Constitution conferred upon them. This alteration was carried by thirty-one votes against twenty-seven. A list of amendments was then agreed upon, and a circular letter was adopted, to be sent to all the States, recommending a general convention; and on Saturday, the 26th of July, the ratification, as thus framed, with the Bill of Rights and the amendments, was carried by thirty affirmative against twenty-seven negative votes.[454]